Short essays and notes on food, history, and the kitchen.
Where ideas live before they cool into a book.
- Recipe NoteMay 21, 2026 · Recipes · 4 min
Pastel de Choclo
Pastel de Choclo is a Chilean baked corn casserole with layers of creamy corn purée and savory braised beef pino.
- Recipe NoteMay 21, 2026 · Recipes · 4 min
Pastitsio
Pastitsio is a Greek baked pasta dish with layers of spiced lamb ragù, tubular pasta, and a creamy béchamel sauce on top.
- Recipe NoteMay 21, 2026 · Recipes · 5 min
Pav Bhaji
Pav Bhaji is a Mumbai street food consisting of a spiced vegetable mash served with toasted buttered bread rolls.
- Recipe NoteMay 21, 2026 · Recipes · 4 min
Pkhali (Georgian Vegetable Spreads)
Pkhali is a Georgian spread made from processed vegetables and ground walnuts, seasoned with spices and vinegar for flavor balance.
- Recipe NoteMay 21, 2026 · Recipes · 4 min
Creamy Polenta with Mushrooms
Creamy polenta topped with sautéed mushrooms. Focus on stirring techniques and texture control for optimal consistency and flavor.
- Recipe NoteMay 21, 2026 · Recipes · 4 min
Pyttipanna
Pyttipanna is a traditional Swedish hash that repurposes leftover ingredients into a satisfying one-pan meal.
- Food HistoryMay 21, 2026 · Food History · 5 min
Regional Miso: Why the Same Word Means Different Food in Different Parts of Japan
A bowl of miso soup in Sapporo, in Nagano, in Kyoto, and in Nagoya tastes like four different dishes. The differences are not random — they map directly onto climate, what koji grain was locally available, and how long the fermentation could safely run. Miso is one of the cleanest cases in Japanese cuisine of geography expressing itself as flavor.
- Food HistoryMay 21, 2026 · Food History · 5 min
Rice and Empire: How a Single Grain Built More Civilizations Than Any Other
Rice has fed more humans than any other crop in history. The Yangtze valley domesticated it roughly 9,000 years ago, and the way different societies organized themselves around it — Chinese granaries, Japanese koku-measured feudalism, Southeast Asian terraced river valleys — shaped the political geography of monsoon Asia for the next ten thousand years.
- Recipe NoteMay 21, 2026 · Recipes · 5 min
Risotto allo Zafferano
A creamy, aromatic Italian saffron risotto that embodies the essence of Milanese cuisine.
- Recipe NoteMay 21, 2026 · Recipes · 4 min
Sachertorte
Indulge in the rich, chocolatey delight of Sachertorte, a classic Austrian dessert with a glossy chocolate glaze.
- Recipe NoteMay 21, 2026 · Recipes · 4 min
Salade Niçoise
Salade Niçoise is a French salad featuring tuna, green beans, potatoes, olives, and hard-boiled eggs, showcasing balanced flavors and ingredient layering.
- Recipe NoteMay 21, 2026 · Recipes · 3 min
Satsivi (Georgian Walnut Chicken)
Satsivi is a Georgian dish made of chicken coated in a thick walnut sauce, emphasizing emulsification and flavor layering techniques.
- Recipe NoteMay 21, 2026 · Recipes · 3 min
Semla
Semla is a Swedish dessert consisting of a cardamom bun filled with almond paste and topped with whipped cream.
- Recipe NoteMay 21, 2026 · Recipes · 3 min
Shepherd's Pie
A classic British Shepherd's Pie featuring layers of savory minced lamb topped with creamy mashed potatoes.
- Recipe NoteMay 21, 2026 · Recipes · 3 min
Shkmeruli (Georgian Garlic Chicken)
Shkmeruli is a rich and creamy Georgian garlic chicken dish that's easy to prepare and full of flavor.
- Recipe NoteMay 21, 2026 · Recipes · 4 min
Sopes
Delight in homemade sopes topped with savory ingredients for a perfect Mexican snack.
- Recipe NoteMay 21, 2026 · Recipes · 3 min
Souvlaki
Souvlaki consists of marinated pork or chicken skewers grilled over high heat. It is a traditional Greek dish commonly served with pita and sauces.
- Food HistoryMay 21, 2026 · Food History · 5 min
A Thousand Years of Soy Sauce: From Chinese Jiang to a Global Condiment
Soy sauce is not Japanese in origin. Its ancestor is the Chinese jiang, a class of fermented bean-and-grain pastes documented in the 3rd century BCE. Buddhist monks brought it east to Japan in the Kamakura period, Edo-era Noda and Choshi refined it into modern shoyu, and the Dutch East India Company shipped barrels of it to Europe before most Europeans had ever met a Japanese person.
- Recipe NoteMay 21, 2026 · Recipes · 3 min
Spanakorizo
Spanakorizo is a Greek dish combining rice and spinach, seasoned with dill and lemon to enhance flavor and aroma.
- Food HistoryMay 21, 2026 · Food History · 5 min
Sugar and Slavery: The Sweet Tooth With a Cost Most People Have Forgotten
Sugar cane was domesticated in New Guinea, traveled through India and the Arab agricultural revolution, and reached Europe as a medicinal luxury. Then Portuguese plantations on Madeira, Brazil, and the Caribbean turned it into the economic engine of the Atlantic slave trade. Roughly 12.5 million Africans were forcibly transported across the Atlantic; the largest share went to sugar islands.